


To Bite, or Not To Bite

by jilliancares



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: First Kiss, Klance Secret Santa 2017, M/M, Vampire Bites, Vampire Turning, Vampire!Lance, Vampires, all vampire lore shamelessly stolen from the vampire diaries, im loving all these vampire tags, p obvious, this is a vampire story so there are blood mentions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 10:13:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13144500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jilliancares/pseuds/jilliancares
Summary: After a visit to a vampire-infested planet, Voltron faces the struggles of having one of their own turned into a vampire.Or:Lance is a blood-sucking monster who is Desperate to be hugged again.





	To Bite, or Not To Bite

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kpopkinetics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kpopkinetics/gifts).



> this is a christmas present!!! i'd originally intended to write a super cute, fluffy christmas story, but then my mind would only let me write about vampires
> 
> tabby - i really hope you like vampires lmao. also merry christmas!!!! you are funny and kind and a bright light of a presence and oh god i'm sorry for turning your christmas fic into an 11k vampire monstrosity, please forgive me
> 
> (((all my vampire lore ??? taken straight from the vampire diaries. you'll never guess which show i've been watching recently)))

“…And we’ll all be on our best behavior, _right Lance_?”

Lance blinked, registering the tail end of Allura’s speech as she said his name. “Totally, Princess.” He punctuated this with a pair of finger guns that clearly said _I’ve been listening to you this entire time._  Allura just sighed.

“You haven’t been listening to any of the debriefing, have you?”

“Yes I have!” Lance argued, offended.

“Oh, yeah? So you’re not going to do or say anything wildly inappropriate when they drink blood in front of you?”

“ _What_?!” Lance exclaimed, hastily looking around at his fellow paladins to see if Allura was joking. They all looked unimpressed. “All right, you got me, I wasn’t listening. They’re not _really_  going to drink blood, are they?”

“Yes, they are,” Allura said, unamused. “As I said before, they’re what you earthlings would call a ‘vampiristic’ species.”

“We’re about to meet VAMPIRES?” Lance exclaimed. “How the hell did I zone out for that!?”

“They’re perfectly capable of compassion and kindness, so we will treat them with _respect_. They were the ones to reach out about teaming up against Zarkon, so —”

“Hold up,” said Lance, cutting off Allura and garnering sharp glances from everyone. Lance brushed them aside. “Are you sure we should be trusting _vampires_? What if they’re just trying to lure in a nice snack?!”

“They’re not.”

“How do you know that?” Lance persisted. “Besides, the way you’re talking about them… it’s like you don’t completely trust them either.”

Allura stiffened. “Alteans have not had the best history with their kind, but that’s in the past now. We need more allies against Zarkon, and they’ve offered.”  
“Am I the only one who sees how bad of an idea this is?”

“You’re being prejudiced, Lance,” said Pidge. “These are real people. The only vampires you know of are the made up ones in books and movies.”

No one was willing to side with Lance despite the many other good points he brought up, and finally they were landing and exiting the ship on the vampire planet. Many people (vampires) were milling around, and an important looking one came up to greet Allura.

“Princess,” he said, and he grabbed her hand and kissed it. “How nice to see you again.”

“ _Again_?” Lance whispered, giving Hunk a Look. Hunk, at least, seemed as nervous as Lance. Maybe now he was regretting not siding with him earlier.

“Yes, again,” said the vampire, apparently having heard Lance. Oh God, all those vampire legends were true, weren’t they? Voltron was literally at the hands of a murderous super-powered species. “We do not age, nor do we die of natural causes. We’ve adapted naturally due to our inability to reproduce.”

“Paladins, this is Drair, one of the oldest of his kind,” Allura cut in, and they all hastened to greet him formally. After that, they were led to a great hall, where many vampires were seated, waiting. They were unnaturally still, and plenty of them were holding glasses, the liquid inside leaving their lips stained red.

The paladins shuffled into a row of seats. Beside Lance was Keith, who either had an incredible poker face or wasn’t unnerved by the vampires at all. This left an empty seat on the other side of Lance, which a random vampire slid into. Lance found himself sitting up straight, his fingers curled into his palms. Could the vampire smell his fear? Could it hear his heartbeat, thundering inside his chest? Could it _hear his thoughts_?!

The ceremony started, as boring as every ceremony Lance had to attend was. Some vampire stood at the end of the hall and droned on about peace and team work and the greatness of Voltron and blah, blah, blah. Lance zoned out big time, which wasn’t rare for him.

A tap on the shoulder made Lance jump — although this time, instead of jumping because he was afraid he was about to be reprimanded by Shiro, it was because a _vampire_  had just _touched_  him. Slowly, he turned his head, trying not to quiver before the vampire.

“What?” he whispered. The vampire cocked his head, widening his eyes slightly. Lance found himself unable to look away.

“It’s Lance, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay, Lance. In one minute, I want you to stand up and make your way to the podium.”

“How come?”

“It doesn’t matter. You’ll do this for me, won’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”Lance faced forward again, silently counting in his head. None of that conversation struck him as odd, though perhaps it should have. He couldn’t think of a reason why he had to do as the vampire had said, but he knew he had to.

_Seven, six, five…_

Lance stood up slowly, trying not to draw too much attention to himself.

“Where are you going?” Keith whispered, turning to look at him with a frown.

“Bathroom,” Lance lied.

“You should’ve gone before.”

“Whatever.” Lance squeezed past the vampire on his left and started walking down the side of the hall, sticking to the shadows that clung there. All the vampires in the rows he passed seemed to be looking at him out of the corners of their eyes.

“…It is because of this trust — trust, which must be unbreakable — that we offer Voltron a gift,” the speaker was saying. Lance realized it was Drair. Had it been him speaking this whole time?

Lance didn’t really know what he was doing — Allura would surely yell at him for it later — but he climbed onto of the podium, walking straight towards the vampire.

“Perfect timing,” Drair murmured, just loud enough for Lance to hear. Lance glanced out at the crowd, spotting his friends easily. They were the only ones not sitting completely still in the crowd. Also, they were the only ones looking murderous.

Drair turned back to the crowd. Lance stayed by his side, wondering just what he was doing up here. God, why had he listened to that vampire? He was totally gonna get beyond scolded for this later.

“Voltron is one of the strongest forces in the universe, everyone knows that,” Drair began. “But there are other strong forces as well, aren’t there? Imagine the strength of Voltron and vampires _combined_.”

With a flourish, Drair pulled a knife out of his pocket, and he just as quickly he sliced into his wrist, blood pooling in the open wound. Lance could see his teammates moving anxiously in their seats, murmuring amongst each other. And Allura had had the gall to coach _him_  on being polite tonight. Sheesh.

“Drink, Lance,” said Drair, now holding his wrist out to Lance.

“Oh, woah — I don’t know if you’ve ever met a human before, but we don’t drink bl —”

“Drink it,” Drair instructed, looking at him intently, and Lance nodded, unable to refuse. “Okay,” he said. He grabbed Drair’s wrist and pulled it up to his mouth. It tasted like blood, obviously, but a bit sweeter and less gross. By the time Drair pulled his wrist away, the cut he’d made with the knife was almost healed. Lance wiped his chin, his wrist coming away bloody.

“I ask you,” Drair continued, “What force could possibly be stronger than Voltron piloted by vampires?”  
Lance saw, even from this distance, Allura’s eyes widen. She jumped up in her seat. “Drair, don’t!”

“I’m sorry, Princess,” said Drair, and several vampires in the audience stood up and restrained Lance’s friends. He wanted to protest, but… “How else can I ensure that vampires will garner your protection?”

Everything seemed to be happening so quickly. All of Lance’s friends looked vaguely panicked and he couldn’t seem to figure out why. It was as if there were a hazy veil over his eyes, as if everything was happening to him from a distance.

“Lance, sweetheart,” said Drair, and Lance turned to look at him, still dazed.

“Drair, what’s —”

Drair shushed him. “This won’t hurt a bit,” he said, and he was right. Lance didn’t feel a thing when Drair snapped his neck.

—

Everything ached. Despite having had his neck snapped, Lance could hear — God, he could hear _everything_.

People were yelling. Or, not people — Voltron. He could hear their individual voices, could hear Hunk’s panicked breathing and Pidge’s little noises of astonishment. He could hear Keith demanding to be told _what had just happened_  and Allura and Shiro and Coran —

God, were they always so loud?

His chest ached. His heart _hurt_. Lance struggled to move any part of his body, and couldn’t.

And then, after far too long, with his teammates still clamoring loudly and vampires murmuring amongst themselves and Drair explaining how this was for this best, his heart gave a desperate _thump_. Just like that, air flooded his lungs, and Lance sat up, gasping for breath and looking every which way. It was so much brighter in here than it’d been before, and now his teammates were making even more noise, couldn’t they just _shut up already?_

“Welcome back,” said Drair, and he reached down and pulled Lance to his feet. Lance stumbled, his head pounding and his neck aching. He leaned against Drair, his eyes drooping shut as he struggled to stand on his own two legs.

“Wha’s happenin’ to me?” he slurred, squinting around the room. He didn’t understand how everything hurt — his eyes, his ears, his whole goddamn body. And, wait a minute… wasn’t he supposed to be dead?

“You killed me!” Lance exclaimed, the realization flooding in, and he stumbled away from Drair. His legs still weren’t working all that well and he tripped over himself, falling to the ground.

“True,” said Drair, completely uncaring. “But that doesn’t matter.”

“Am… Am I a ghost?” Lance whispered, bringing his hands before his face to stare at them. He didn’t look translucent, and he didn’t feel dead, so…

“Are you really that dumb?” Drair scoffed. “You’re a _vampire_. Well, almost.” Suddenly, someone cried out, and a person was shoved to the ground before Lance. A girl.

She looked similar to the vampires, the same features and such, but she was completely different. Where they were still, she was full of life and movement. And while the vampires were quiet, she was _loud_ , whimpering under her breath and… and…

Her heart. It was thundering under her chest, pulsing, pushing her blood through her veins and… she wasn’t quite human, but she was _close enough._

“What’s happening to him?” That was Hunk’s voice. It sounded like Hunk was just beside Lance, but when Lance looked, his friend was still submerged in the crowd, held still by vampires. “What… what are they doing?”

“He was dead,” said Keith. Lance looked to him now, and he could’ve sworn their eyes met. “He… He should _be_  dead. How is he alive?”

“It’s the vampires,” said Allura. “They’re Turning him.”

“Drink, Lance,” said Drair. Lance turned to face him.

“What?” he said.

“Drink,” Drair instructed, but this time his words didn’t force Lance to obey.

“I’ll hurt her,” said Lance, shaking his head now. The girl was still whimpering before him, trembling in place.

“It’s what she’s for,” said Drair. He cocked his head, looking down at the girl. “We keep them around, let them breed, so that we can continue to eat.”

“That’s sick,” Lance choked out, looking up at the vampire with horror. “She’s a person too!”

“She’s a blood bag, and we’re hungry.” Drair took his knife and cut the side of the girl’s throat, who cried out. She slapped her hand over the injury, whimpering, but blood welled up between her fingers.

Lance wanted to feel disgusted. He wanted to jump to his feet and pull out his bayard and shoot Drair in the face. But all he felt was _hungry_. The sight of the blood, something that probably should’ve made his stomach curl, made his mouth water — he was captivated by it.

“Go ahead, Lance,” said Drair. “Drink it. You’re hungry.”

Lance couldn’t help himself. He never wanted to hurt an innocent person — had dedicated his life to doing the opposite, in fact — but his entire body seemed to have a mind of its own. He launched himself forward, tearing the girl’s hand away from her neck and clamping his mouth around it instead.

He drank. Warm, delicious blood spilled over his lips and down his throat and he moaned, the taste and feeling intoxicating. He was crushing the girl’s arm with one hand, the other clenched on her shoulder as he rose over her, drinking hungrily, draining her dry.

“That’s enough, Paladin,” said Drair. “Our food-source isn’t unlimited.”

Lance barely heard him, the part of him that comprehended the words immediately discarded them. He wasn’t done. There was more blood in her to be had and he would have it all.

Strong hands gripped Lance’s shoulders and he was thrown aside forcibly. He crashed into a wall, so hard that dust and cement crumbled down on him, and the girl was ushered away, sobbing. Lance’s chin was wet, covered in blood and — oh God.

His mind cleared and with it, panic followed. Oh God, he’d just… he’d almost killed someone! What was wrong with him!? His stomach roiled and he gagged — he shouldn’t have liked drinking that girl’s blood. That was so twisted and sick and vampires _weren’t real_  he couldn’t be a vampire that couldn’t be possible he couldn’t —

Lance flinched backwards as Drair touched his shoulder, but Drair was stronger and faster than him and he pulled Lance to his feet. Lance was shaking. Everything was too much. Too bright and too loud and too _hungry_ , God, where had that girl gone?

“This is our gift to you, Voltron,” Drair said. Lance followed his gaze, his entire body feeling shellshocked. Allura looked furious, and the rest of the team looked a similar amount of angry and worried. Lance was panicking. He could feel it climbing up his chest and clenching around his (undead?) heart. “Now you’ll be stronger than ever. Your paladin is better than he ever has been before, and you’d do well to apply this advantage to the rest of the paladins.”

“You honestly expect our alliance to stand?” Allura demanded, outraged. “After _this_?”

Drair hummed. “I don’t think you quite understand. You see, I am one of the few originals of my species. If I were to die, everyone in my bloodline would also perish. So, you’d do well to protect my planet, unless the life of — Lance, was it? — means so little to you.”

Finally, Drair shoved Lance aside, and he stumbled a few steps. Blood had dried on his chin. He couldn’t imagine what he looked like — some kind of monster, for sure — and he almost didn’t want to have to face his friends.

“You’re free, little fledgling,” said Drair, smiling at Lance. “Go on now, go back to your friends.”

Lance did what he said, but only because he wanted to. He was surrounded by vampires, who for some reason still scared the crap out of him, despite the fact that he was one of them now. He broke into a run, wanting to be with his friends again, except his feet propelled him about a billion times faster than usual. Before he even had time to take a breath he was standing amongst his friends, eyes wide with panic.

“Let’s go,” Allura hissed. Everyone stayed silent as she ushered them out of the great hall and back towards the castleship.

“Lance,” called a voice. Lance turned, stiffening when he saw it was Drair. “This is for you,” he said, and he tossed a large box at Lance, one that he surprisingly managed to catch. “Just in case you don’t feel like eating your friends.”

Curious, Lance lifted the lid of the box, frowning at all the bags of blood inside. The sight of them shouldn’t have made him feel hungry, but they did.

“Come on, Lance.” This was Allura. She’d come back for him, peering out the door at Lance, who was still standing on the ramp. He nodded distractedly and followed, shoving the cooler into Allura’s arms as he passed her.

“I don’t know what to do with that,” he mumbled, and continued on his way.

Lance was expecting a big Voltron Meeting once everyone was back on the ship, and that was exactly what he got. Allura disappeared somewhere with his sustenance, and Lance soon found himself in the common room with everyone else. He was seated alone on a couch, not sprawled over Hunk or with his legs thrown over Keith, simply to annoy him.

He could tell that everyone felt wary of him and he hated it. Even more, he hated that he couldn’t blame them — he’d be scared of a vampire in his home, too.

Surprisingly, it was Shiro who finally broke the silence. “This is us, guys,” he said. “We don’t have to be worried. We’ll take this in stride, just like we took finding a magical blue lion and warping through space in stride. Right, Lance?”

Lance looked up at him. He’d been staring at his knees previously, counting the threads in his jeans. Had he always been able to see each individual thread like that, completely crystal clear? “Right,” Lance agreed.

“Were you listening to me?” Shiro said with a frown, and Lance frowned back.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I have been?”

This made everyone look at Lance, kind of like, _are you kidding me?_  He just blinked. Usually he found it hard to concentrate on any one thing for too long, something that made following along in conversations and listening to directions challenging, but right now he felt fine. It was like his brain had calmed down — kind of. Now there were other things distracting him, like the sound of Pidge tapping her finger on her knee or Hunk cracking his knuckles or even the electric buzz of the lights in the room.

“Anyway,” Shiro continued. “It’s just — everything’s going to be okay. Right, Allura?”

“Yes,” Allura hastily agreed. “We’ll all help Lance through this.” There were murmurs of agreement all around. It didn’t change the fact that Hunk was looking at him like he was a stranger or that Keith was wearing that poker face again or that Pidge was looking at him like she was trying to analyze him.

“I’m tired,” Lance announced. He stood up, shoved his hands into his pockets, and left the room. Even from all the way down the hallway, he could still hear everyone talking.

“He seemed weird.”

“He’s adjusting. He’ll be fine, he just needs some time.”

“What if he loses control? What if he kills one of us?”

“He _won’t_. Just —”

Lance broke into a run. He was in front of his door in seconds, and it slid open to admit him. Without anything better to do, he collapsed on his bed.

He stayed there for all of one minute.

It was just — _argh_ , something was making this incessant noise. It was this tapping, happening over and over again and it was driving Lance _crazy_. It could be as loud as a bomb, for all it was bothering Lance. He’d already scoured his entire room, and then his bathroom, but he couldn’t find the source of the noise anywhere.

_Tap. Tap. Tap._

Lance let out a frustrated noise and kicked his bedside table. The table, though it was bolted to the floor, crumpled in on itself. Lance stormed out of his room, standing stock-still as he strained to find the noise.

Keith’s room, he soon realized. It was coming from Keith’s room.

Without bothering to knock, Lance let himself in.

“Woah, Lance — what are you doing?” Keith sat up in his bed. Lance tried to ignore the fact that Keith looked almost scared, pretended that that didn’t _hurt_. As if he would ever hurt one of his friends.

“There’s this… _noise_ ,” Lance finally said, scanning the room for its source. “If I don’t find what’s making this noise I’m going to go fucking insane.” He stomped around Keith’s room, throwing open his closet and riffling through his clothes. He even lifted Keith’s mattress, making Keith let out a surprised sound as he was lifted with it.

Lance dropped Keith and his mattress back in place, tugging at his hair.

“Want me to help you look?” Keith offered tentatively.

“Can you even hear it?!” Lance demanded. “It’s so loud! I just — I can’t —”

Keith shook his head. “I can’t hear it.”

Lance growled and spun around, finally storming into Keith’s bathroom. And oh God, _there_. There! Lance dived on the sink, twisting the faucet off with a sigh of relief. It’d been on just the tinniest amount and water had been steadily dripping into the sink, making that horrible noise.

“There,” Lance sighed, slumping against the sink. “It stopped.”

“You could hear that from your room?” Keith said quietly, and Lance nodded. He felt exhausted. And hungry. But God, he didn’t want to drink any more blood.

“I need to go,” Lance sighed, picking himself up and shuffling past Keith.

“Lance, wait.” Lance turned, regarding Keith. “Are you going to be okay? Is there anything… anything I could do?”

“I’ll be fine,” Lance said. He turned around and strode from the room, trying to convince himself that this wasn’t a lie.

—

It was entirely too easy to avoid everyone. He could hear them coming from a mile away, could even hear them conspiring on the other side of the castle, planning what they would say to him and how they would make him listen.

Knowing when they were coming wasn’t the only added advantage. Lance found himself with access to parts of the castle he’d never had access to before. Doors that he’d previously ignored due to them being unfortunately locked were now his domain, a simple kick busting them wide open. Not to mention one of Lance’s new favorite tricks: hiding on the ceiling. It was easy enough to get himself up there and took barely any strength or concentration for him to stay in place, pressing against the walls on either side of him to maintain his leverage. All in all, Lance was realizing he might never have to face any of his friends ever again if he didn’t want to.

This didn’t stop them from trying, however. They even got petty about it, trying to sneak up on him in the middle of the night. Just because he was asleep didn’t mean his hearing became any less amazing, and he was bound to wake up with the way they all moved around the castle like lumbering elephants.

He could tell they were becoming frustrated with him. Allura had even taken to making announcements over the castle’s system to try to persuade him to come talk, but Lance just ignored those as well. Could he really be blamed for not wanting to see everyone?

Of course, in the end, they did end up catching Lance. Turned out Pidge had concocted a trap for him. The next time Lance snuck into the kitchen and opened the fridge, currently stocked with his blood bags alongside all the other food, a cage descended upon him. Surprisingly, the metal was too strong for him to wrench apart and the cage too heavy for him to displace.

“Aha!” said Pidge, sprinting in the room holding a strange device, probably one made to inform her when her trap had been sprung. “Caught you!”

“Release me,” Lance tried.  
“Nope, no way José.” Pidge clicked a few buttons on her machine and within minutes everyone else was gathering in the kitchen to view Lance, the vampire zoo animal. Lance was feeling mutinous, his arms held stiffly by his sides, his blood bag still clenched in one hand.

“You can still eat that, you know,” Pidge said, gesturing to his hand. Lance scoffed, throwing it onto the counter and crossing his arms.

“I’m not eating in front of you,” he snapped. Everyone else had shuffled to stand beside Pidge, and Lance could feel himself becoming more and more agitated. He felt like even more of a freak than usual, trapped in these bars and being stared at by what were supposed to be his friends.

“Lance, we’re not scared of you.” Surprisingly, it was Keith who spoke up.

“Then you’re stupid,” Lance spat. “I could rip your throat out without trying.”

“But you wouldn’t,” Hunk pointed out.

“But I _could_.”

“Calm down, Mr. Melodramatic,” Pidge scoffed. “You don’t want to kill us and we miss you, so stop avoiding us.”

Lance clenched his jaw. See, this was where she was wrong. Despite the rational, normal, perhaps human side of Lance — the part that said, _hey, these are my friends whom I love_  — a whole other part of him was _screaming_  for him to rip into their skin. He longed to devour, to drink and drink until he couldn’t anymore. He could hear what sounded like a stampede of heartbeats, all clamoring for his attention, screaming that there was blood to be had.

Forcing himself to take a deep breath, and then another, Lance calmed himself down. It was like scooping water out of a boat with a cup, time-consuming and seemingly hopeless, but he did it. His friends went back to being friends instead of meals and he blinked, zoning back into reality and realizing he’d managed to throw himself backwards and cling onto the bars behind him.

“You okay?” said Hunk. His eyes shined with worry, but not the kind that suggested he was going to step backward and edge out of the room. Instead, he looked worried for Lance, and he came closer, raising a concerned brow.

“I think so,” Lance answered, and he felt his face crumple as he took a step forward, grabbing the bars before him and getting as close to Hunk as he could. He barely even comprehended that he was crying as he spoke. “I don’t want to be a vampire,” he said, peering up at Hunk with tear-blurred eyes. “I don’t want to hurt anyone…”

“You won’t,” Hunk promised, and Pidge did something that made that walls of the cage come down, and Lance’s entire body longed to take that step forward, to fall into Hunk’s arms and let himself be comforted, but then he remembered tearing into that girl’s neck back on the planet, and he imagined himself hurting Hunk in the same way, and he knew he couldn’t let that happen.

He glanced past Hunk, seeing Coran’s hopeful look, Shiro’s determined one, Allura encouraging and Pidge confident. Lance met Keith’s gaze, whose eyes narrowed in suspicion just as Lance used his newfound freedom to bolt. He slipped past Hunk and darted past all the others, knowing that he was a coward.

He should’ve also known that his friends were assholes and Pidge never settled for just one plan. Lance found himself trapped in a second cage just steps from the kitchen, a cage which he kicked in anger.

“Let me out of here, Pidge!” he roared.

“You sneaky bastard!” Pidge yelled back. “You tried to escape!”

“ _You_  put me in a cage! Like an animal! Twice!”

“Enough, you two,” Allura reprimanded. “Lance, it’s important that you learn to control your hunger, otherwise you could hurt others.” Lance kicked the side of the cage again for good measure. “ _So_ , to help you learn to manage yourself, you’re going to have enforced company.”

“You’re joking, right?” Lance scoffed.

“Do I look like I’m joking?” Allura, in fact, looked deadly serious. Lance felt murderous.  
“You want to force our friends to spend time with me, someone who could kill them?” Lance looked around at his friends, none of whom looked surprised by the revelation of Allura’s little plan. Were they all seriously willing to participate in it?

Lance very soon learned that yes, everyone _was_  willing to participate in it.

There wasn’t even a leeway period, a time for him to accept the fact that he was soon going to be in enforced company, he just _was_. Pidge let him out of the cage and he was sent off with Hunk, Allura giving him a stern look that clearly said _behave_.

“This isn’t going to work,” Lance muttered bitterly. Everyone had dispersed to do whatever it was everyone else did in their alone time, and Hunk was bringing Lance to his room, one of their usual hangouts.

“Sure it is,” Hunk said, oozing positivity in the way only Hunk could. “You just need to remember what it’s like to be around friends who love you.”

“Friends that I want to _eat_ ,” Lance muttered. Hunk slapped his arm.

“You can try to make us believe that if you really want to, but we both know you’d have a complex if you so much as licked one of our paper cuts.” Lance crossed his arms and pouted. The truth was, he’d mainly been avoiding everyone out of fear of being treated differently, and here Hunk was, acting as normal as always.

Deciding to ignore Hunk’s statement, Lance brought up another good point. “Allura realizes I could ditch you in literally a second, right?”

“But then you’d have to face her wrath,” Hunk pointed out. “I bet even vampires are scared of a stern talking to from Allura.”

“She’s _terrifying_ ,” Lance allowed as the door to Hunk’s room slid open.

The next hours were a mixture of Lance realizing that company was exactly what he’d been needing and denying himself the pleasure of properly enjoying being with Hunk. The thing was, Hunk had always been an expert at cheering Lance up. He just knew the right kinds of things to say and do.

But now, Lance would be laying on Hunk’s bed or talking to him or laughing at something he’d said and it’d hit him all over again that he was a _vampire_ , usually because a wave of hunger had just washed out whatever other feeling Lance had been having moments previously. And then he’d be sitting there, knowing he should be laughing at Hunk’s god-awful pun and instead daydreaming about pinning him to the bed and sucking the blood from his throat.

It was impossible not to acknowledge the fact that Lance was a blood-sucking monster and that if his friends had any sense at all, they would leave him on an abandoned planet where he could live out his now immortal life away from anybody he could manage to hurt.

“Stop looking like that,” Hunk said, and Lance blinked. Looking at Hunk, it was like there were two versions of him, some sort of vampire double vision. On one hand was Hunk, his best friend, one of the people he loved most in the world, and on the other was — simply put — dinner. “Just breathe,” Hunk said. “You’re not gonna hurt me.”

“You don’t know that,” Lance said. His fingers were curling into the mattress beneath him. “I — I have to go,” he said hastily, shooting to his feet.

“No, Lance! You have to stay and learn to fight it.”

“I can’t,” Lance hissed, breathing heavily now. He could probably have Hunk drained of blood within seconds. His incisors were coming down, pushing painfully past his other teeth and piercing the inside of his mouth, filling it with the taste of his own blood.

Hunk, the idiot, stood up and came closer to Lance. “Just breathe, Lance,” he instructed. “Fight it.”

And so Lance did. He closed his eyes and breathed and willed his fangs away because he’d never forgive himself if he turned his best friend into a buffet. He opened his eyes again once he’d finally calmed down, and Hunk was smiling at him. “See?”

—

Not that Lance wanted to complain — his friends had really come through for him in this trying and terrifying time — but if he had to do another day of enforced company he was going to rip someone apart. And not in the _‘I’m a vampire and I can’t help wanting to eat you for dinner’_  way, but the _‘I have superhuman strength and a combination of anger and annoyance might lead me to accidentally ripping your face off’_  way.

It’d been a few days since Allura had enacted her plan, and while Lance was willing to admit it had worked splendidly (he no longer felt the urge to either consume or run away from his friends whenever he saw them), he was starting to think it was time for it to end. Even before becoming a vampire he’d very much appreciated his alone time, and now he no-longer got any of it.

Spending time with Hunk and Pidge was normal enough, seeing as Lance was already well-versed in spending time with them thanks to their being friends prior to being Paladins of Voltron. It was preferable, actually, because time spent with them could just as easily be time spent with them while doing completely different things, just in the company of each other. With everyone else, Lance tended to find himself counting down the minutes until they were relieved of duty.

First, there was Shiro, who for some reason felt particularly guilty about Lance having been turned into a vampire in the first place. He’d spent their first session of Enforced Company apologizing for having let this happened to Lance. Since then, the time they spent together was full of more than enough awkward silences, the amount of which made it suddenly obvious to Lance that he’d never had reason to spend time with Shiro one-on-one before.

Allura wasn’t ideal because she didn’t tolerate Lance’s amazing wit and flirtation abilities, and on top of which, she took him all over the castle, practically transforming him into a slave as she went about her boring and endless Princess Duties. Coran was a downright nightmare, as each of his sessions meant listening to long-winded descriptions of boring Alien history while Lance was forced to do chores about the castle, neither of which Lance enjoyed in the least.

Finally, this left Keith. The only reason Lance hated being in his company for so long was because every time it was Keith’s turn for an Enforced Company Session, both Pidge and Hunk gave Lance a frankly absurd amount of eyebrow raises. He’d known it was a mistake to tell them about his feelings for Keith, but he’d never been very good at keeping secrets, and keeping it from Keith himself was difficult enough as it was.

See, usually Lance flirted with someone the moment he had any sort of feelings for them, which a lot of the time resulted in them unfortunately letting him down or, also unfortunately, thinking he was joking. With Keith, Lance couldn’t bring himself to flirt. Instead, all that came out were taunts and insults and God, what was wrong with him?

So, yes, spending Enforced Company with Keith was kind of torture. He always looked a bit awkward and uncomfortable as he asked Lance what he wanted to do, anyway? And Lance never had anything specific in mind, obviously. As of late he’d just been laying in bed or following people around as they got with the chores they were supposed to be doing. Sometimes, if he was feeling extra bored, he told his current companion that he had to go to the bathroom and did a few laps around the castle, just to get some of his energy out.

Although, both Pidge and Hunk seemed to think all of this was some kind of blessing for Lance, the traitors.

“When else would you get him in your room?” Pidge had said, and Lance had thrown a pillow at her. He’d been underestimating his own strength and it’d smacked her straight across the room, accompanied by a flurry of apologies from Lance.

Anyway, long story long, Lance wanted out. He wanted this enforced company bullshit to be over already. He was no longer strung up from being killed and brought back to life as a vampire, no longer desperate to kill his friends just because it seemed like a yummy thing to do, and he was feeling pretty good about himself. So, yes, Lance was ready to be able to be left alone again. And this was exactly what he told Allura.

“No,” she said. “I think it’d be best if you continue to spend time with everyone.”

“I get that, but like, _all the time_? Can’t we have like, Voltron game nights or something instead?” Lance suggested. “I mean, we’ve already proved that I’m fine spending time with you guys one on one. The next challenge would be everyone all at once, right?” Somehow, some _way_ , this managed to convince Allura. Lance secured his freedom _and_  forced everyone into having a game night, something he’d been trying to do for almost as long as he could remember.

Basically what this meant was that Lance didn’t have to go crazy anymore. He didn’t have to sneak away from whoever was — let’s face it — chaperoning him in order to suck down a blood-bag in private. A semblance of normalcy came into place on the castleship, or about as normal as it got when you were living in outer space and responsible for the fate of the universe. The only thing that really differed was the fact that Lance was a vampire.

And if all it took to have a game night initiated was for Lance to become a vampire? Worth it.

They pulled out all sorts of Altean board games and went to town on them, splitting up into random teams when necessary. Being a vampire gave Lance several advantages, too. His poker face was suddenly phenomenal _and_  he was privy to all of Pidge’s cheating.

“Pidge,” Lance said several times throughout the night, turning a flat stare on her.

“What?” Each time she said it was just as innocent, just as inconspicuous-looking as the last. Everyone else fell for it every time, but not Lance.

“In your sleeve,” he said this time, and Pidge scoffed, shaking the card she’s sneakily slipped in there onto the floor.

“These vampire senses aren’t fair,” she muttered.

“ _C_ _heating_  isn’t fair!” Lance exclaimed, but Pidge’s haughty expression seemed to say that she would forever deny cheating despite already having been caught.

Eventually, game night came to a close, though everyone remained in the common room. It’d been entirely too long since Lance had actually been around them all, and he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed them until then. He didn’t say anything, but he was secretly glad the night wasn’t over, and he leaned back against the couch, waiting for whatever they would end up doing next.

“Creepy,” Keith murmured. He said it quietly — so quietly, in fact, that apparently no one else had heard it. Normally, Lance wasn’t one to draw attention to someone’s private, out-loud thoughts, but Keith’s gaze was trained on him and he was offended.

“Excuse me?” he said, glaring at Keith.

Keith’s mouth dropped open. He looked surprised to have been caught, which was stupid, seeing as Lance had the best hearing of anyone ever, it felt like.

“Sorry,” Keith said immediately, shaking his head. “I didn’t mean — I was just… I meant —”

“That I’m creepy?”

“No! It’s just, you usually move around so much.”

“Mmmm, true,” Hunk immediately agreed. “I noticed that too.”

“Yeah!” Pidge enthused. “ _Creepy_.”

Murmured agreements came from everyone and Lance sat up straight, unsure whether he was supposed to be offended or not.

“What are you guys talking about?” he demanded. “What’s creepy?”

“We’re just used to seeing you move around a lot,” Keith said. “Tapping your fingers, shaking your leg, biting your lip.” He shrugged. “Now you’re just… really still.”

Lance remembered sitting in that great hall. He remembered thinking how oddly still all the vampires had been. It didn’t even feel like he was being still now — or maybe it did, he couldn’t tell. It was odd because he could remember constantly bouncing his legs, always moving without even thinking about it. And now he was doing the opposite.

“That is weird,” Lance finally agreed. He looked down at his leg and bounced it a few times. “Normal?” he said, looking up at his friends with an eyebrow raised.

“Lance-like,” Pidge agreed, and Lance smiled at her. Hunk stood up and plopped himself on the couch a little ways from Lance, who grinned. No one bothered to say anything to him when his leg started bouncing at super-speed, becoming a blur with how fast he was bouncing it.

Lance similarly didn’t say anything about how his leg started bouncing faster only when he remembered what Keith had said. _Tapping your fingers, shaking your leg, biting your lip…_

—

Though it felt like it couldn’t be true, Lance was kind of getting the hang of all this vampire stuff.

He was practically a master at everything nowadays. He was faster and stronger and better than everyone else, not that he liked to brag. He could block any attack, best any droid, and dodge any laser beam. Going to practice with everyone else started to feel like a waste of time — it seemed like there was nothing more for him to learn, every training exercise suddenly a million times easier than they’d been before.

Maybe it was because of this that Lance often found himself wondering why everyone hadn’t asked him to turn them yet. They’d be the strongest force in the entire universe! Not only would they be more than a match for most opponents, they’d also heal within seconds whenever an enemy actually managed to hurt them. Most importantly, they’d be immortal; they could stick around and fight Zarkon for however long it took. And no, Lance wasn’t just thinking all of this because he’d recently decided to face the knowledge that, if no one else became a vampire, there’d eventually come a day when he was still a 17-year-old boy and all his friends were all dead.

Anyway, Lance figured it was only a matter of time. Surely everyone could see how superior he’d become? Surely they’d come begging soon enough, ready to become vampires and go on Vampire Space Adventures for the rest of eternity?

Too soon, Lance got the answer to his question. The answer as to why his friends weren’t clamoring for the chance to be as undead as him: he was a monster.

When it came to hunger, to _blood_ , he completely lacked control.

It happened when they were all sitting in the common room, doing separate things but spending quality time together while doing them. Lance, like the majority of the time, was alone on the couch, a good distance from anyone with fresh blood pumping through their veins.

Across the room, Pidge was tinkering on some random invention when she suddenly let out a hiss. “Shit,” she said under her breath, ignoring the subsequent reprimand from Shiro.

“What’s wrong?” someone asked, but Lance barely even heard their question. All he knew was that Pidge was bleeding.

In a blink, he was across the room and pinning Pidge to the floor. She was yelling and other people were yelling and Lance was biting into her wrist and Jesus Christ, he’d forgotten how good this was — blood, _warm_ , delicious, wonderful blood.

Someone tried to tear him away from Pidge and he shoved them roughly, hearing them crash into a wall across the room, and sucked harder and harder.

“Stop it, Lance! This isn’t you! Stop!” It wasn’t the words that got through to him. Instead, it was the feeling of Keith’s sword gutting him. Literally: it went straight through his back and out his stomach, hot and agonizing but exactly what he needed. He cried out and in doing so shoved Pidge away from. Keith yanked the sword back out of Lance, just as painful going out than in, but already he could feel his insides knitting themselves back together. Worse than the pain, however, was the guilt.

He’d bitten Pidge.

Lance wrenched himself to his feet and threw himself across the room, panting as he pressed himself against the wall. There was a pool of his blood on the floor and now smeared against the wall as well. The room, though it’d been full of shouting moments earlier, was now deathly quiet aside from both Pidge and Keith’s harsh panting.

Lance was a monster. Pidge’s blood was dripping down his chin, and in a strangely childish gesture, he wiped it away with his wrist, stammering as he tried to find any words suitable for apologizing to Pidge.

“Lance,” Allura was saying, approaching him cautiously. “Lance, I need you to calm down and listen —”

“Stay away from me!” Lance cried out. Surprisingly, Allura listened. Her face took on this blank look as she nodded.

“Okay,” she said. Lance remembered, then, how the vampires back on that planet had controlled him in the same way, with their words alone.

“Lance,” Pidge said, clambering back to her feet. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not,” Lance said, shaking his head firmly, and then he left the room, feeling like the most despicable creature in the universe.

—

In Lance’s Self-Enforced Solitude, he did some studying up about vampires. He figured it was best to know more about his kind if he was going to prevent himself from hurting any of his friends ever again. Pidge had tried to come by and tell him that it was okay, that he was still learning how to control himself and that it wasn’t his fault, but Lance had sent her away. Funnily enough, even Keith had visited, though with intentions of apologizing for stabbing Lance. He, too, was sent away.

And no, this wasn’t to say that Pidge and Keith — two of the most stubborn people Lance knew — suddenly decided to start listening to him. No, Lance compelled them. This was one of the things he’d learned about from the giant vampire book he’d stolen from the castleship’s library.

Basically, vampires could tell other people to do things — compulsion — and people just did it. Lance had also learned that the whole vampires and garlic thing was a myth, though the being staked thing was not. Needless to say, he was suddenly feeling very grateful for the lack of wood found in space. He was also feeling grateful towards the lack of suns, seeing as daylight apparently _would_  kill him. Oh, and he was flammable, too.

Possibly most interesting, however, was the fact that vampire blood acted as a healing agent towards humans. Lance couldn’t deny that this would be handy when someone got injured mid-battle — better than hoping they could make it to a healing pod in time, anyway.

So, yeah. Positives of his Self-Enforced Solitude: Lance was super educated and also he’d learned that he could do a handstand for two hours before he started getting tired. The downsides? He was _starving_.

He’d locked himself in his room for two days now and had refused to come out, afraid his team members would ambush him. Now, he was seriously contemplating sprinting to the kitchen and devouring every blood-bag he could get his hands on.

It was while he was thinking this that the alarms starting going off, blaring so loudly that Lance groaned, smacking his hands over his ears. He burst into the hallway, coming face to face with Keith, exiting his own room.

“Is this a drill?” Lance demanded, hands still over his ears.

“No!”

“A trick to get me to come out of my room?”

“No!”

Assuming Keith was as bad of a liar as always, Lance jogged towards the hangers with Keith, keeping pace with him so as not to leave him behind.

Soon enough, Lance’s body was on autopilot: he’d shoved on his space suit and climbed into his lion and shot out into space with everyone else.

It was kill or be killed, shoot or be shot, doge or be dodged — or, maybe not that last one. Things were fast-paced and adrenaline-inducing as always, a Galra fleet having come across them by accident with backup on the way.

As always, something ended up going wrong. It turned out this specific Galra ship was only in this section of the universe in the first place because they were carrying Important Information, information which the Blade of Marmora had been trying to track down since like, the beginning of time. At least, that’s how they made it sound when they frantically called Allura, telling her that they _couldn’t_  destroy the ship currently trying to kill them — at least until they extracted the information.

“I’ll do it,” Keith volunteered immediately, because he was a martyr and also The Worst.

“If anyone should do it, it’s me,” Lance argued. “I could be in and out of there in like two seconds.”

“And if anyone saw you, they’d realize you’re a vampire,” Keith pointed out.

“So I won’t let them see me.”

“You’ll both go,” Shiro instructed. “There’s two locations the information could be anyway, so you’ll have to split up.”

That was how Lance found himself sneaking onto a Galra ship with Keith. This was his first time having to face enemies since becoming a vampire, and he actually felt strangely invincible. It was liberating, knowing he couldn’t be killed unless someone happened to have a wooden stake on them, but it also made him 10,000 times more worried for Keith’s safety, knowing that he _could_  die.

“Hear me out,” Lance whispered, and Keith was already rolling his eyes, but Lance gripped his wrist and held on. He wasn’t holding on too tightly, so Keith could’ve yanked his wrist away if he really wanted to, but he didn’t.

“Whatever you’re thinking, the answer’s no,” Keith said, and Lance scoffed.

“What if I’m thinking of a great plan?”

“You’re probably just thinking that you’re invincible and I’m not and are going to try to convince me to sit this one out.”

“That mind-reading thing you just did? Terrifying,” Lance said, and Keith finally shoved Lance away.

“You go that way, I’ll go this way.”

“Fine,” Lance huffed. “First one to find the intel wins.”

“This isn’t a competi —“

“GO!”

Lance sprinted off down the corridor, zipping past doorways and sentries so fast that no one even saw him. Hopefully he’d be able to obtain the information and get back to Keith super quickly, before Keith could even get to the other end of the ship.

It was only shortly after thinking this that Lance fell for some kind of trap — a trip-wire or something. Lasers exploded from the walls, as did knives, and Lance groaned as he fell to his knees, yanking daggers from his skin and hissing with relief as his body healed, albeit a bit slower than usual. Maybe it hadn’t been a good idea to starve himself for two days.

 _“What was that? You okay, Lance?”_  Shiro asked from his helmet as Lance panted, watching as a patch of skin on his stomach knit itself back together.

“Super,” Lance answered.

After another few minutes, Lance came to the conclusion that either this ship was boobytrapped as hell or he just had horrible luck, having gotten the only boobytrapped hallway. He’d been impaled and similarly injured on three separate occasions since the first trip-wire and was starting to feel a bit peeved, not gonna lie.

Some of his injuries had yet to heal, too. They were closing up slower and slower, and he wasn’t running quite as fast as he had been earlier either. His black under-suit was filled with holes, the only parts of him having not been punctures being the places where his armor was thickest.

Finally, Lance reached the possible location of the intel.

“I’m here,” he said into his helmet. Hunk and Pidge had been yelling something about the battle going on outside, but it didn’t sound too dire.

 _“Lance,”_  Allura said. _“Do you see the information chip?”_

Lance looked all around the little room per Allura/the Blade of Marmora’s directions, but he didn’t find what he was looking for anywhere, meaning…

 _“It must be on Keith’s side,”_  Pidge concluded.

 _“I’m almost there,”_  Keith chimed in.

“I’ll meet you,” said Lance, and then he was retracing his steps, wincing at the different areas where he’d been attacked, still decorated with his blood.

It took him longer to get to Keith than it probably should have, though not as long as it would had he still been human. Keith was busy digging through a drawer, Allura giving them instructions in their ears, and Lance leaned against the door jam, keeping an eye out for Galra. He’d evaded detection from all the Galra on his side, but Keith had just left dead or knocked out Galra in his wake, meaning it was only a matter of time before one of them was discovered and alarms were blaring.

While Keith was searching, Lance bent over his knees and tried to catch his breath. It was strange — he could barely remember what it was like to be winded, having not grown tired once since becoming a vampire. It was a bit disconcerting, then, that he was so exhausted now.

“Found it!” Keith suddenly said. “No thanks to you.” He spun around to look at Lance, who stood back upright. “Woah, you look like shit.”

“Wow, rude.”

“No, seriously. Are you okay?”

 _“What’s wrong with him?”_  Hunk demanded, going ignored by the both of them.

“I’m more than okay,” Lance lied. It was becoming obvious that his latest bout of injuries weren’t planning on healing with his current state of blood loss.

“You’re bleeding!” Keith suddenly pointed out.

“It happens,” Lance said.

“Lance…” Keith said slowly. “When’s the last time you ate?”

“Well, considering I don’t technically _eat_  —”

“Stop being difficult,” Keith interrupted him.

Lance shrugged. “Two days ago.”

 _“God dammit, Lance,”_  said Pidge.

“If everyone could stop judging my eating habits,” Lance said loudly. “That’d be nice.” He then collapsed on the floor. “Shit.”

“Lance!”

“Calm down! I’m just a little… woozy.”

“You’re going to have to drink my blood,” Keith said, and Lance shook his head ‘no’ at super speed.

“Nope. No thanks!”

 _“Keith…”_  Shiro warned.

Keith, ignoring Shiro and Lance and all logical sense, kneeled in front of Lance. “Come on,” he said, his wrist held in front of Lance’s mouth.

“Yeah, this isn’t happening,” Lance said, trying to stand back up. His limbs thought it’d be a fun time to just Not Cooperate, however, and so he was a kind of pathetic, struggling mess right there on the floor. Keith, deciding to make things more difficult, clambered onto Lance’s stomach and made it a million times harder for him to stand up.

Technically speaking, he should’ve been able to vampire strength his way out of this, but he was pretty sure he only had like, two drops of blood in his system right about then. So it just wasn’t happening.

“Drink,” said Keith, now pressing his wrist against Lance’s mouth. If Lance didn’t drain him dry during this, he was going to kill Keith for being such an idiot.

It was kind of hard to resist the offer when he was starving and it was literally pressed against his mouth, and so Lance’s fangs came down and he bit into Keith’s wrist, his hands coming up to curl around his arm.

It was indescribable, getting blood straight from the source. And _willingly_. Sure, refrigerated blood-bags did the trick, but warm, fresh blood? Nothing could beat it.

In fact, Lance was enjoying it so much that he tore himself away from Keith’s wrist and went for a bigger, more plentiful vein: his jugular. Keith grunted as Lance shoved a hand into his hair and pulled his head aside before burying his teeth in his neck, moaning as energy in the form of blood rushed through him, as his injuries finally closed back up.

 _“Lance,”_  someone was saying in his ear. _“That’s enough Lance, you’ll kill him!”_

Just like that, Lance was pulling himself away, panting. Keith had been sitting on top of him at the start of it all, but Lance had somehow ended up switching their positions.

“Shit,” said Lance. “Are you okay?”

“‘M fine,” he said, and Lance slid off him and pulled him to his feet. Keith swayed in place, his eyes a bit glazed over, but he smiled.

“You did it,” he said. “You stopped yourself.”

“God, you’re an idiot,” Lance huffed.

Their escape from the Galra cruiser was accompanied by blaring alarms, and at one point, Lance threw Keith over his shoulder and sprinted the rest of the way to freedom as fast as he could. Afterwards, Keith was red-faced and grouchy but alive, so Lance put up with it.

With the intel safely off the ship, it was only a matter of moments before they formed Voltron and destroyed the whole fleet. Once back on the castleship, both Lance and Keith were treated to being called idiots a bunch of times and also being patted on the back and hugged, everyone relieved that they’d made it out of there alive.

Lance reveled in the hugs he received, squeezing everyone back tightly and hoping it wouldn’t be too long before he got to have another one.

It wasn’t long before everyone went their separate ways, most likely to shower and change out of their armor (in Lance’s case, fairly torn apart and destroyed). This meant that Keith and Lance headed off in the same direction, their shoulders occasionally bumping as they headed towards their rooms.

“You know, you were a huge idiot today,” Lance said conversationally.

“You’re one to talk,” Keith scoffed. “I’m not the one who starved myself for two days.”

“ _I’m_  not the one who offered my blood to a vampire.”

“You were dying!”

“I can’t die,” Lance pointed out, and Keith rolled his eyes. They were almost at their rooms now, and Lance cleared his throat, walking a bit slower. Keith matched his pace. “Does your neck hurt, by the way?”

“A bit,” Keith said, shrugging it off.

Lance silently debated how weird it would be to offer Keith his blood, and decided to give it a shot. “I can heal that, you know.”

“What?”

“Magic vampire blood,” Lance said casually. “Want some?”

For some, unknown reason, Keith actually agreed. Lance bit his own wrist before holding it out to Keith, who wrapped his fingers around Lance’s arm tentatively.

“This is weird,” he said.

“Drink it before I heal, slow-poke,” said Lance, and Keith pulled Lance’s wrist up to his mouth and drank. By the time he was done, Lance’s wrist had healed back over, and the bite marks on Keith were doing the same.

“Woah,” Keith said, staring at his wrist as the red marks faded.

“I know, right?” said Lance. “Just don’t die anytime soon or you’ll be a vampire too.”

“ _What_?”

“Night!”

—

Lance was willing to admit that there was a major upside to Keith having let him drink his blood, which was that everyone trusted him a whole lot more nowadays. Lance could often be found cuddled up to Hunk on the couch or with his legs flung over whoever was closest to him — this included Keith, of course. Except Lance was now noticing that Keith didn’t really bother to protest when he did this anymore. Instead, he just got a bit red in the face.

Somehow, this led to Lance touching Keith practically whenever he could manage. He’d become touch-starved, everyone having been so scared of him for so long. Even Lance didn’t feel so wary, didn’t feel like he might lose control and bite whoever was nearest to him.

He didn’t think he was being too obvious with his whole, new, Keith-touching agenda, except Hunk and Pidge kept sending him looks that said otherwise. But Lance couldn’t help it! He loved shoving his feet under Keith’s thighs or grabbing his arm when he wanted to say something or pinning him to the ground when they were sparring (Lance always won, vampire abilities and all, but Keith kept challenging him for some reason). Plus, he was pretty sure Keith was enjoying all the touching as much as he was.

Keith wasn’t really one to take the initiative, he wouldn’t throw _his_  legs over Lance or wrap his arm around Lance’s shoulders, but he almost always deliberately sat near Lance whenever they were in the common room, as if waiting for Lance to touch him first.

Perhaps needless to say, Lance was starting to get the feeling that Keith shared his feelings. In an attempt to prove it, Lance did — well, this:

“What’re we cooking?” he said as he walked into the kitchen. Hunk was the only one cooking, wearing an apron and holding a spatula. Pidge was sitting on the counter and swinging her feet which were thunking loudly on the cupboards below her, and Keith was facing away from Lance, watching Hunk.

Lance came up behind Keith and wrapped his arms around his torso, propping his chin on Keith’s shoulder as he did. “Smells good,” Lance commented, and Hunk sent him a Look, one that seemed to say, _Please stop torturing Keith._

And it was possible that he really _was_  torturing Keith, who had gone very still against Lance and didn’t seem to be breathing. His ears had gone bright red. Lance leaned more of his weight against him.

“I can’t help but feel like that’s a lie,” Hunk said, poking at the food in the pan with his spatula. “Considering you don’t eat food anymore.”

“Touché,” said Lance. “Maybe I was talking about Keith.”

“ _What_?” Keith squeaked, and Lance stepped away from him, grinning with his fangs extended as Keith spun around, red-faced.

“I’m just kidding,” he said, and before he could let himself think about it, he ruffled Keith’s hair. Then he walked past him and towards the stove, leaning over it to peer at the sizzling whatever-it-was. “Although you are the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

“Gross,” Hunk muttered.

“Hey!” Pidge said, offended. “What about me?”

“Too salty.”

“Lance, you’re gonna hurt yourself,” Hunk said, trying to shove Lance away from the stove.

“I heal fast.”

“You’re _flammable_.”

“I taste good?” Keith said, apparently still stuck on that conversation point.

“Remember how I’m a vampire?” Lance said. “And how I drink blood to live?”

“Shut up, Lance,” Keith said, and Lance grinned.

Anyway, yeah. Lance was pretty sure Keith liked him. _Liked_  him, liked him.

—

Seeing as Lance was always the one to initiate pretty much any kind of touch between himself and Keith, he never would’ve suspected for Keith to show up at his bedroom door in the middle of the night, because what else could that mean besides, _Hi, I’ve come here to cuddle and maybe make out._

“Keith?” Lance said, staring at him incredulously.

“So you _do_  sleep,” Keith commented, looking from Lance’s mussed hair to his pajama clad legs (and lingering a bit on his bare chest).

“Vampires need sleep, yes,” Lance said. “Is that why you’re here?”

Keith’s mouth dropped open, as if he thought he might be able to get away with waking Lance up without having Lance ask that question.

“Um. Well, not really.”

Lance raised an eyebrow at him.

“I was just thinking about what you said earlier, um, in the kitchen? And I felt kind of bad. That your blood-bags don’t taste as good as me?”

Lance blinked. And then he processed — _very slowly_  — exactly what was happening.

“Keith,” Lance said. “Are you offering?”

“Um. I think so?”

“Are you sure?”

Keith took a deep breath. “Yes. It didn’t really hurt when you did it before, so.”

“And you’re just offering this out of the goodness of your own heart?”

“Yes. Well, mostly.”

“Spit it out.”

“I just think it makes sense,” Keith said carefully. “You can drink my blood, and then heal me with yours, and that way way if I ever die… Well, I’ll come back.”

“Woah,” said Lance. He hadn’t even thought of that. It was a pretty big commitment. “You uh, realize you’d be a vampire, right?”

“I’m not an idiot,” Keith said, crossing his arms as he grew uncomfortable. “Besides, it’s only a matter of time before we all end up dead one of these days, anyway. It just makes sense for us to come back afterwards.”

“That’s true.”

“And I doubt you’d want to spend eternity alone, either.”

“Also true,” Lance conceded. “All right, I’m down.”

“Really? You’re not gonna reprimand me? Or tell me this is a dumb idea?”

“Are you kidding me? You’re right, I don’t want to spend my immortal life alone. And we’d all be super badass as vampires.”

“What about that original vampire? Drair?” Keith said. “If he dies, his whole bloodline dies, he said. So what if the Galra captured and killed him?”

“I mean, I doubt that’d happen, considering he’s like a billion years old and Zarkon’s way less than that, but if you’re trying to talk yourself out of this, go ahead.”

“I’m not.”

“Then come on.” Lance led Keith over to his bed. Keith blushed a whole lot but didn’t protest, and Lance pulled him close, getting up on his knees.

“Sure you’ll be able to stop?” Keith whispered.

“Pretty sure,” Lance answered, and then he was biting Keith. For the record, this was like, the best idea Keith had ever come up with. He was so much better than those stupid blood-bags, and pliant, and holding onto Lance, his fingers warm against Lance’s stomach.

Lance finally pulled away. He licked Keith’s throat before he did, collecting the last drops of blood, and sat back.

“Good?” Keith said, breaking the silence.

“Great,” Lance confirmed. Keith’s hands were still resting on Lance’s sides and Lance smirked, placing his hands over top of them. This made Keith blush, realizing where his hands had been in the first place.

Lance only made him suffer for a moment before he brought his wrist up to his own mouth and bit it, offering it to Keith. Afterwards, he rolled off him and stretched out on his bed languidly, his belly full.

“All right,” Keith said, mostly to himself. He started to sit up. “I’ll just —”

“You wanna stay?” said Lance.

“What?”

“Slumber party,” Lance said. “I promise I won’t eat you in your sleep.”

Keith snorted, but he laid back down, staring at the ceiling.

“Night,” Lance said. He was laying on his side, staring at Keith. Keith swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“Night, Lance.”

—

Lance thought it might be nice to officially announce that Keith was a genius. Sure, partly because now he would never die For Real and Lance got a nice meal at the end of every day, but mostly because he got to spend every night wrapped around Keith. And the thing about spending every night cuddling with someone was that it was pretty hard for that to remain platonic.

For example, Lance’s sleep-ridden mind sometimes had trouble remembering that he and Keith weren’t actually dating when he first woke up, which might lead to him kissing Keith on the chest or jaw or, yeah he’ll admit it, lips. And Keith did nothing to stop this, just taking it in stride with pink cheeks and a flustered appearance.

Of course, cuddling at night and kissing in the mornings pretty naturally led to cuddling and kissing during the day. Lance couldn’t help wrapping himself around Keith whenever he came across him in the castle — he was just so used to it! And kissing him was just the next logical step. Keith’s lips were so soft and warm and Lance’s new favorite thing was to kiss him whenever he was scowling.

Possibly the best thing to ever happen to him was when Keith kissed him first, though. He just came into his room for the night, kissed him square on the mouth, and pulled down his turtleneck.

“I’m not so hungry right now,” Lance said, opting to pull Keith onto the bed instead. “Wanna watch a movie?”

Although another great contender for the best thing to ever happen to Lance was Keith whispering, upon waking up one morning, “We’re dating, right?”

“I sure hope so.”

“Okay. So, you’re my boyfriend?”

“Mhmm,” Lance murmured, leaning up to kiss Keith’s jaw.

“Okay. Good.”

All in all, Lance figured being a vampire wasn’t all that bad. Especially if it meant he might one day have a vampire boyfriend who he could spend an immortal life with.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to come to [my tumblr](https://jilliancares.tumblr.com) and chat to me about this fic or voltron or whatever you want!


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